I'm building a heist scenario where the players must find a way into the deepest recesses of a city's royal treasury and steal an ancient, magical scabbard (which will help them find the blade it belongs to elsewhere). I've got the maps for the treasury built out and will be putting in plenty of traps and such, but my main sticking point is figuring out reasonable methods within the rules for magical security systems.
It's a level 7 party, and granted I could make up my own ideas, but it would be great to have some actual items, spells or other mechanics I could use as a base. Specifically, what I'm looking for are:
- A way to detect and/or stop a wildshaped druid in its tracks - Ways to prevent magic from being used in sensitive areas (dispel magic and antimagic field come to mind) - Ways to silently alert guards in a different room/location that a sensitive area has been breached, without alerting the invaders
I've found the Guards and Wards spell and the Glyph of Warding, but it feels like I'll need to kind of homebrew some specific rules to achieve what I'm looking for. Specifically, I'm hoping to make it a bit more challenging for a wizard and druid, so they can't just turn invisible/wildshape into a spider and waltz through all the sensitive areas, even during their recon.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be very helpful. If anyone is interested, I can share the rough maps for the treasury.
Magical moonlight in 5e seems to be a bane of shapechangers. Perhaps a homebrew light source that reveals shapechangers and invisible creatures?
I homebrewed a spell with a similar effect years ago:
Feylights
Level
4th
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
Self (30 ft )
Components
V, S, M *
Duration
Concentration 10 Minutes
School
Evocation
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Detection (...)
A 30-foot sphere of silver flames dances around you, driving back shadows and revealing hidden foes. Until the spell ends, the sphere moves with you, centered on you. The sphere is bright light and sheds dim light for an additional 30 feet. Invisible creatures and objects are visible as long as they are in the area of bright light.
The light forces incorporeal creatures to manifest physically. Each incoporeal creature within the area of bright light is unable to use Incorporeal Movement and loses any resistance or immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage and any immunity to being grappled or restrained.
* - (a lantern and a silver coin, which the spell consumes)
This is giving me the idea of a special type of lamp that causes anything magical or under the influence of magic of any kind to glow brightly and emit noise, including invisible creatures and tiny shapeshifted druids.
I'm having trouble finding this Magical Moonlight spell, though. Which module was it introduced in?
The spell you're looking for is moonbeam. It can force shapechangers back into their original form. By RAW, that doesn't necessarily apply to wild shaping, but as a DM I'd say it fits.
Ah nice, I never actually realized moonbeam had that secondary property. What would be a good secondary spell/effect to pair with that? Like, a glyph on the ground or surrounding a hallway that, if a creature enters (without saying the right phrase or carrying a specific item), it would trigger the Moonbeam spell on their location or fill the corridor with dozens of Moonbeams. What would be a good spell/item which could trigger those?
I understand that, at a point, the answer is: whatever you as the DM decide. A panel on the floor or an invisible force field could trigger it. But I do like to try to exhaust every RAW option first before homebrewing. I have a player familiar with D&D that likes to call out homebrew stuff when he sees it. Not maliciously, and he never contests it, but it's always been very satisfying when he gets caught in a non homebrew trap he didn't expect, haha. Plus, it helps avoid it feeling like I'm specifically targeting him and his abilities (even though I am, the clever druid that he is, haha.)
I'll think about this. The first thing that comes to mind is a serier of corridors filled with mirrors, so that the lamp emitting the beam of light is reflected endlessly, obscuring its location. I don't have a great idea for a trigger, but maybe if somebody walks through the mirror maze and accidentally touches one of the mirrors it'd activate?
Also I wouldn't worry about seeming like you're targeting the player, in this circumstance. If druids exist in the world, then countermasures could also reasonably be expected to exist, too.
That would be cool, it could even somewhat replicate the famous "dodge the lasers" from every heist movie ever, haha.
And yeah, he's a cool player, at most he'd make a joke about it and it wouldn't take much convincing that it's a believable thing for the people here to do.
Thanks for the feedback, it helped and got some ideas brewing in my head!
First of all, remember that neither wild shape nor invisibility actually permits you to bypass stealth checks, they merely allow you to make checks in situations where it might otherwise be impractical. Also, note that the creature type of a shapeshifted druid is still humanoid, not beast. Also, neither lets you get through a closed door.
While you don't mention it, a usual priority for this kind of thing is a way to prevent teleporting inside. The usual options for this are private sanctum, hallow, and forbiddance. The last will do an excellent job of stopping annoyances such as familiars as well.
For less dire options, alarm is the easy way to alert guards. You can also use creature guards -- for a low CR option that's reasonably appropriate for the job, modrons have truesight, which means they can see invisible and the true forms of shapeshifters.
First of all, remember that neither wild shape nor invisibility actually permits you to bypass stealth checks, they merely allow you to make checks in situations where it might otherwise be impractical. Also, note that the creature type of a shapeshifted druid is still humanoid, not beast. Also, neither lets you get through a closed door.
While you don't mention it, a usual priority for this kind of thing is a way to prevent teleporting inside. The usual options for this are private sanctum, hallow, and forbiddance. The last will do an excellent job of stopping annoyances such as familiars as well.
For less dire options, alarm is the easy way to alert guards. You can also use creature guards -- for a low CR option that's reasonably appropriate for the job, modrons have truesight, which means they can see invisible and the true forms of shapeshifters.
Is that right? I always believed that when you wildshape, your creature type assumes whatever you shapeshift into. I can't find it in the PHB that a wildshaped druid is still considered Humanoid. Could you point me in that direction?
Also, as for making stealth checks, my concern is more in the realm of (as the D&D movie popularized) wildshaping into a tiny insect and crawling beneath doors and being so small that no one would even see you. Perhaps a trained animal which specializes in eating flies and bugs in case of a druid, or like a cat which can see magic?
As for teleportation, the good news is the party doesn't really have any access to teleportation spells or abilities as of yet. But thanks for the reminder, I'll be sure to incorporate some of those elements (as the treasury would want to be protected against people outside the party too).
I love the idea of Modrons! I forgot all about those guys. It could even fit into the lore of my world a little bit (in that ancient warforged have been found and repurposed, giving people prosthetic limbs and the mechanized parts scavenged into new devices by tinkerers). The idea of a few mechanized little guards patrolling and keeping an eye out for any magical invaders is a lot of fun. Maybe they've been turned into actual security cameras, by being placed in high corners of rooms.
Also, as for making stealth checks, my concern is more in the realm of (as the D&D movie popularized) wildshaping into a tiny insect and crawling beneath doors and being so small that no one would even see you. Perhaps a trained animal which specializes in eating flies and bugs in case of a druid, or like a cat which can see magic?
Oddly enough... turning into a tiny insect has absolutely no effect on your stealth roll :)
Have the glyph trigger spells like Darkness, Faerie Fire, and Silence. Establish an environment so that security personnel in other rooms will notice the conditional changes the spells cause. There is an added element that characters will now have to deal with the potential detriment that comes from these spells as well as dealing with the guards who are now alerted of their location.
Use Animated Armor as inspiration for making sentinels and guards.
One way to deal with wildshare is to have the NPCs make attacks against them or have traps triggered that cause damage. The character still needs to make ability checks and saving throws while in this form so anticipate what the character may do for the recon and design scenarios to make it more of a challenge for them.
Best way I've seen to deal with Wildshape (or any other ability) during heists (or any other adventure type), is get over the urge to control everything and let the players actually use their character abilities without trying to railroad them into solving the problem the exact way you envisioned. It is fair to put some thought into making sure that one ability doesn't completely trivialize the encounter, but make sure you aren't punishing the players for using their abilities as intended, just because it deviates from your script.
Best way I've seen to deal with Wildshape (or any other ability) during heists (or any other adventure type), is get over the urge to control everything and let the players actually use their character abilities without trying to railroad them into solving the problem the exact way you envisioned.
There is a difference between 'railroad PCs' and 'think about what rational NPCs would do to protect their stuff'.
Best way I've seen to deal with Wildshape (or any other ability) during heists (or any other adventure type), is get over the urge to control everything and let the players actually use their character abilities without trying to railroad them into solving the problem the exact way you envisioned. It is fair to put some thought into making sure that one ability doesn't completely trivialize the encounter, but make sure you aren't punishing the players for using their abilities as intended, just because it deviates from your script.
Absolutely, and to clarify, my intent is not to railroad the players or punish them for having good abilities. I'm thinking more pragmatically: in a world where druids and shapeshifters exist and thieves could potentially turn into tiny insects to sneak past guards, the most important vaults and treasuries would be aware of that threat and install defenses against it. For them to ignore such a major security threat would be unrealistic and damage the world's believability. In a smaller town, sure, they might not think of that or have the resources, but this is the capital city with a prestige magic college down the road, so they 100% know about druids and would want to plan against them. So yeah, less so me trying to slow down or stop the players, and more building a believable, intense security system which makes it even more satisyfing for them to overcome.
If your NPCs are high enough level to be setting all these super spells and systems up. Why wouldn't they just Sequester the valuable stuff in a Demiplane? That way nothing short of a demigod can get it.
You're going overboard. The idea seems to be a challenging few encounters to get the macguffin. What you're actually suggesting is "I'm going to block everything you can do and make sure you get killed for trying" - which seems a bit at odds with your initial concept.
Also... You're the DM. Want a vault they can't just break into - say it. And done. Now they need to find the key to open it and there's the doable-winnable-but-difficult encounter challenges.
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There is a difference between 'railroad PCs' and 'think about what rational NPCs would do to protect their stuff'.
There absolutely is, and I did agree that you need to put some thought into making sure the encounter doesn't get trivialized unexpectedly. It wouldn't make a particularly fun session for anyone in the party if the Druid turns into an ant, take 2 days walking to the macguffin, break wildshape to pick it up, then take 2 days walking back as an ant. Preventing stuff like that completely makes sense, but all the suggestions here have been along the lines of breaking wildshape from being remotely useful and punishing the Druid for using their class abilities.
If it was me I'd let them gain some valuable reconnaissance in wildshape, but then just say any important plot-relevant door is completely tight with no crevices (already need this to prevent the whole party from just Misty Stepping past everything). And maybe design in some combat encounters that are best handled by the complete party and would be tough for a scout out of position.
Absolutely, and to clarify, my intent is not to railroad the players or punish them for having good abilities. I'm thinking more pragmatically: in a world where druids and shapeshifters exist and thieves could potentially turn into tiny insects to sneak past guards, the most important vaults and treasuries would be aware of that threat and install defenses against it. For them to ignore such a major security threat would be unrealistic and damage the world's believability.
Personally I'd say you're trying too hard to make it "realistic" and not focusing enough on just making it fun. Realistically, the vault is just untouchable, game over. But that's boring, so we bend realism. See Cyb3rM1nd's post above he said it better
There absolutely is, and I did agree that you need to put some thought into making sure the encounter doesn't get trivialized unexpectedly. It wouldn't make a particularly fun session for anyone in the party if the Druid turns into an ant, take 2 days walking to the macguffin, break wildshape to pick it up, then take 2 days walking back as an ant. Preventing stuff like that completely makes sense, but all the suggestions here have been along the lines of breaking wildshape from being remotely useful and punishing the Druid for using their class abilities.
If it was me I'd let them gain some valuable reconnaissance in wildshape, but then just say any important plot-relevant door is completely tight with no crevices (already need this to prevent the whole party from just Misty Stepping past everything). And maybe design in some combat encounters that are best handled by the complete party and would be tough for a scout out of position.
Personally I'd say you're trying too hard to make it "realistic" and not focusing enough on just making it fun. Realistically, the vault is just untouchable, game over. But that's boring, so we bend realism. See Cyb3rM1nd's post above he said it better
Pretty much, yeah I just want to make sure they can't use their abilities to just circumvent everything. I already have other ideas I didn't mention in place to make it challenging (such as there being dozens of vaults, each locked with a unique key, but only one has the item they need so they need to find it, a construct guardian which awakens when the area is disturbed, unexpected visitors and an upcoming ball being held in the treasury to complicate matters, as well as a couple player specific foibles. For example, turns out the treasury has a small zoo full of caged animals, which is sure to distract the druid player). I just know this group pretty well, and they are a very crafty bunch and enjoy solving what would seem like an impossible task.
If your NPCs are high enough level to be setting all these super spells and systems up. Why wouldn't they just Sequester the valuable stuff in a Demiplane? That way nothing short of a demigod can get it.
You're going overboard. The idea seems to be a challenging few encounters to get the macguffin. What you're actually suggesting is "I'm going to block everything you can do and make sure you get killed for trying" - which seems a bit at odds with your initial concept.
Also... You're the DM. Want a vault they can't just break into - say it. And done. Now they need to find the key to open it and there's the doable-winnable-but-difficult encounter challenges.
These are good points, and I do appreciate the feedback. You're right, there are ways for powerful NPCs to just make the treasury impervious, and I'm not trying to fully block the players. Like I said above, I just want to make sure I've thought it through from the NPCs perspective, but they also don't have unlimited resources. Mostly, they just have predicted most avenues of thievery and have some measures in place to guard against it, even if it's not a blocker. Lamps which illuminate magical items/spells is one idea which wouldn't stop the players, but they'd have to work around it.
Like I also said, I do know my group well enough to know that they really enjoy feeling like they overcame impossible odds. I will certainly leave weaknesses and holes in the security (I've already thought up like 3 different ways they could breach the vault, like a waterway/sewer through the toilets/water fountain, an add-on chapel with a secret doorway to the vault underground, etc), but I also know this group would really love the challenge of scoping it out, finding the original design plans, and then working around the tight security. They have referenced the Oceans 11 movies multiple times in how excited they are for the heist, so I know they are anticipating a super tight security and extremely precise, well planned work.
First of all, remember that neither wild shape nor invisibility actually permits you to bypass stealth checks, they merely allow you to make checks in situations where it might otherwise be impractical. Also, note that the creature type of a shapeshifted druid is still humanoid, not beast. Also, neither lets you get through a closed door.
While you don't mention it, a usual priority for this kind of thing is a way to prevent teleporting inside. The usual options for this are private sanctum, hallow, and forbiddance. The last will do an excellent job of stopping annoyances such as familiars as well.
For less dire options, alarm is the easy way to alert guards. You can also use creature guards -- for a low CR option that's reasonably appropriate for the job, modrons have truesight, which means they can see invisible and the true forms of shapeshifters.
Is that right? I always believed that when you wildshape, your creature type assumes whatever you shapeshift into. I can't find it in the PHB that a wildshaped druid is still considered Humanoid. Could you point me in that direction?
A wildshaped druid's creature type is beast or elemental depending on the form they wild shape into.
"Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature’s bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can’t use them."
You only retain specific items from your character sheet. The stats are otherwise replaced by the stat block of the beast (or elemental for level 10+ moon druid). This includes creature type since that isn't one of the properties that is specified as being retained. So a wild shaped druid is not a humanoid.
However, this allows you to use the Hallow spell to apply effects to specific creature types including beasts that would affect a wild shaped druid. Hallow also allows additional effects at the DM discretion. For example, you could cause beasts failing the saving throw to become confused, stunned, blinded, etc. These spells can also be upcast if you like to make them harder to dispel if that might be a concern. You could also have more than one copy of the spell cast in an area so that if one is dispelled, additional stacked copies remain to affect creatures.
Other items you could include would be using Lanterns of Revealing as light sources so that invisibility is less of an option. The Alarm spell or a variation can handle silent notifications.
They could also have trained creatures that are perhaps identified by a magical band whose goal is to hunt down creatures that do not belong making it much harder to sneak in as a wild shaped or polymorphed creature without being found/attacked.
Oh, and put an inevitable in that vault as well, such as the new kolyarut (or something like it but more level-appropriate). The inevitables are the sort of multiversal police, and it makes sense that one would be stationed to combat the theft of something important.
A wildshaped druid's creature type is beast or elemental depending on the form they wild shape into.
"Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature’s bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can’t use them."
You only retain specific items from your character sheet. The stats are otherwise replaced by the stat block of the beast (or elemental for level 10+ moon druid). This includes creature type since that isn't one of the properties that is specified as being retained. So a wild shaped druid is not a humanoid.
However, this allows you to use the Hallow spell to apply effects to specific creature types including beasts that would affect a wild shaped druid. Hallow also allows additional effects at the DM discretion. For example, you could cause beasts failing the saving throw to become confused, stunned, blinded, etc. These spells can also be upcast if you like to make them harder to dispel if that might be a concern. You could also have more than one copy of the spell cast in an area so that if one is dispelled, additional stacked copies remain to affect creatures.
Other items you could include would be using Lanterns of Revealing as light sources so that invisibility is less of an option. The Alarm spell or a variation can handle silent notifications.
They could also have trained creatures that are perhaps identified by a magical band whose goal is to hunt down creatures that do not belong making it much harder to sneak in as a wild shaped or polymorphed creature without being found/attacked.
This is excellent, thank you! Great suggestions here and things to think about. I think I'll probably use modified lanterns of revealing to achieve that "anything magical glows brightly" effect I was thinking of.
Oh, and put an inevitable in that vault as well, such as the new kolyarut (or something like it but more level-appropriate). The inevitables are the sort of multiversal police, and it makes sense that one would be stationed to combat the theft of something important.
This is great, because I was actually planning on having a suped up warforged in the vault which would wake up and attack once anything is disturbed. The Kolyarut seem like a more sophisticated, advanced version of that idea haha.
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Hey all,
I'm building a heist scenario where the players must find a way into the deepest recesses of a city's royal treasury and steal an ancient, magical scabbard (which will help them find the blade it belongs to elsewhere). I've got the maps for the treasury built out and will be putting in plenty of traps and such, but my main sticking point is figuring out reasonable methods within the rules for magical security systems.
It's a level 7 party, and granted I could make up my own ideas, but it would be great to have some actual items, spells or other mechanics I could use as a base. Specifically, what I'm looking for are:
- A way to detect and/or stop a wildshaped druid in its tracks
- Ways to prevent magic from being used in sensitive areas (dispel magic and antimagic field come to mind)
- Ways to silently alert guards in a different room/location that a sensitive area has been breached, without alerting the invaders
I've found the Guards and Wards spell and the Glyph of Warding, but it feels like I'll need to kind of homebrew some specific rules to achieve what I'm looking for. Specifically, I'm hoping to make it a bit more challenging for a wizard and druid, so they can't just turn invisible/wildshape into a spider and waltz through all the sensitive areas, even during their recon.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be very helpful. If anyone is interested, I can share the rough maps for the treasury.
Thanks!
Magical moonlight in 5e seems to be a bane of shapechangers. Perhaps a homebrew light source that reveals shapechangers and invisible creatures?
I homebrewed a spell with a similar effect years ago:
Feylights
A 30-foot sphere of silver flames dances around you, driving back shadows and revealing hidden foes. Until the spell ends, the sphere moves with you, centered on you. The sphere is bright light and sheds dim light for an additional 30 feet. Invisible creatures and objects are visible as long as they are in the area of bright light.
The light forces incorporeal creatures to manifest physically. Each incoporeal creature within the area of bright light is unable to use Incorporeal Movement and loses any resistance or immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage and any immunity to being grappled or restrained.
* - (a lantern and a silver coin, which the spell consumes)This is giving me the idea of a special type of lamp that causes anything magical or under the influence of magic of any kind to glow brightly and emit noise, including invisible creatures and tiny shapeshifted druids.
I'm having trouble finding this Magical Moonlight spell, though. Which module was it introduced in?
The spell you're looking for is moonbeam. It can force shapechangers back into their original form. By RAW, that doesn't necessarily apply to wild shaping, but as a DM I'd say it fits.
Ah nice, I never actually realized moonbeam had that secondary property. What would be a good secondary spell/effect to pair with that? Like, a glyph on the ground or surrounding a hallway that, if a creature enters (without saying the right phrase or carrying a specific item), it would trigger the Moonbeam spell on their location or fill the corridor with dozens of Moonbeams. What would be a good spell/item which could trigger those?
I understand that, at a point, the answer is: whatever you as the DM decide. A panel on the floor or an invisible force field could trigger it. But I do like to try to exhaust every RAW option first before homebrewing. I have a player familiar with D&D that likes to call out homebrew stuff when he sees it. Not maliciously, and he never contests it, but it's always been very satisfying when he gets caught in a non homebrew trap he didn't expect, haha. Plus, it helps avoid it feeling like I'm specifically targeting him and his abilities (even though I am, the clever druid that he is, haha.)
I'll think about this. The first thing that comes to mind is a serier of corridors filled with mirrors, so that the lamp emitting the beam of light is reflected endlessly, obscuring its location. I don't have a great idea for a trigger, but maybe if somebody walks through the mirror maze and accidentally touches one of the mirrors it'd activate?
Also I wouldn't worry about seeming like you're targeting the player, in this circumstance. If druids exist in the world, then countermasures could also reasonably be expected to exist, too.
That would be cool, it could even somewhat replicate the famous "dodge the lasers" from every heist movie ever, haha.
And yeah, he's a cool player, at most he'd make a joke about it and it wouldn't take much convincing that it's a believable thing for the people here to do.
Thanks for the feedback, it helped and got some ideas brewing in my head!
First of all, remember that neither wild shape nor invisibility actually permits you to bypass stealth checks, they merely allow you to make checks in situations where it might otherwise be impractical. Also, note that the creature type of a shapeshifted druid is still humanoid, not beast. Also, neither lets you get through a closed door.
While you don't mention it, a usual priority for this kind of thing is a way to prevent teleporting inside. The usual options for this are private sanctum, hallow, and forbiddance. The last will do an excellent job of stopping annoyances such as familiars as well.
For less dire options, alarm is the easy way to alert guards. You can also use creature guards -- for a low CR option that's reasonably appropriate for the job, modrons have truesight, which means they can see invisible and the true forms of shapeshifters.
Is that right? I always believed that when you wildshape, your creature type assumes whatever you shapeshift into. I can't find it in the PHB that a wildshaped druid is still considered Humanoid. Could you point me in that direction?
Also, as for making stealth checks, my concern is more in the realm of (as the D&D movie popularized) wildshaping into a tiny insect and crawling beneath doors and being so small that no one would even see you. Perhaps a trained animal which specializes in eating flies and bugs in case of a druid, or like a cat which can see magic?
As for teleportation, the good news is the party doesn't really have any access to teleportation spells or abilities as of yet. But thanks for the reminder, I'll be sure to incorporate some of those elements (as the treasury would want to be protected against people outside the party too).
I love the idea of Modrons! I forgot all about those guys. It could even fit into the lore of my world a little bit (in that ancient warforged have been found and repurposed, giving people prosthetic limbs and the mechanized parts scavenged into new devices by tinkerers). The idea of a few mechanized little guards patrolling and keeping an eye out for any magical invaders is a lot of fun. Maybe they've been turned into actual security cameras, by being placed in high corners of rooms.
Oddly enough... turning into a tiny insect has absolutely no effect on your stealth roll :)
Have the glyph trigger spells like Darkness, Faerie Fire, and Silence. Establish an environment so that security personnel in other rooms will notice the conditional changes the spells cause. There is an added element that characters will now have to deal with the potential detriment that comes from these spells as well as dealing with the guards who are now alerted of their location.
Use Animated Armor as inspiration for making sentinels and guards.
Supply the guards with Ring of Spell Storage with Dispel Magic. Won't help with wildshape but can counter spellcasting.
One way to deal with wildshare is to have the NPCs make attacks against them or have traps triggered that cause damage. The character still needs to make ability checks and saving throws while in this form so anticipate what the character may do for the recon and design scenarios to make it more of a challenge for them.
Best way I've seen to deal with Wildshape (or any other ability) during heists (or any other adventure type), is get over the urge to control everything and let the players actually use their character abilities without trying to railroad them into solving the problem the exact way you envisioned. It is fair to put some thought into making sure that one ability doesn't completely trivialize the encounter, but make sure you aren't punishing the players for using their abilities as intended, just because it deviates from your script.
There is a difference between 'railroad PCs' and 'think about what rational NPCs would do to protect their stuff'.
Absolutely, and to clarify, my intent is not to railroad the players or punish them for having good abilities. I'm thinking more pragmatically: in a world where druids and shapeshifters exist and thieves could potentially turn into tiny insects to sneak past guards, the most important vaults and treasuries would be aware of that threat and install defenses against it. For them to ignore such a major security threat would be unrealistic and damage the world's believability. In a smaller town, sure, they might not think of that or have the resources, but this is the capital city with a prestige magic college down the road, so they 100% know about druids and would want to plan against them. So yeah, less so me trying to slow down or stop the players, and more building a believable, intense security system which makes it even more satisyfing for them to overcome.
If your NPCs are high enough level to be setting all these super spells and systems up. Why wouldn't they just Sequester the valuable stuff in a Demiplane? That way nothing short of a demigod can get it.
You're going overboard. The idea seems to be a challenging few encounters to get the macguffin. What you're actually suggesting is "I'm going to block everything you can do and make sure you get killed for trying" - which seems a bit at odds with your initial concept.
Also... You're the DM. Want a vault they can't just break into - say it. And done. Now they need to find the key to open it and there's the doable-winnable-but-difficult encounter challenges.
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There absolutely is, and I did agree that you need to put some thought into making sure the encounter doesn't get trivialized unexpectedly. It wouldn't make a particularly fun session for anyone in the party if the Druid turns into an ant, take 2 days walking to the macguffin, break wildshape to pick it up, then take 2 days walking back as an ant. Preventing stuff like that completely makes sense, but all the suggestions here have been along the lines of breaking wildshape from being remotely useful and punishing the Druid for using their class abilities.
If it was me I'd let them gain some valuable reconnaissance in wildshape, but then just say any important plot-relevant door is completely tight with no crevices (already need this to prevent the whole party from just Misty Stepping past everything). And maybe design in some combat encounters that are best handled by the complete party and would be tough for a scout out of position.
Personally I'd say you're trying too hard to make it "realistic" and not focusing enough on just making it fun. Realistically, the vault is just untouchable, game over. But that's boring, so we bend realism. See Cyb3rM1nd's post above he said it better
Pretty much, yeah I just want to make sure they can't use their abilities to just circumvent everything. I already have other ideas I didn't mention in place to make it challenging (such as there being dozens of vaults, each locked with a unique key, but only one has the item they need so they need to find it, a construct guardian which awakens when the area is disturbed, unexpected visitors and an upcoming ball being held in the treasury to complicate matters, as well as a couple player specific foibles. For example, turns out the treasury has a small zoo full of caged animals, which is sure to distract the druid player). I just know this group pretty well, and they are a very crafty bunch and enjoy solving what would seem like an impossible task.
These are good points, and I do appreciate the feedback. You're right, there are ways for powerful NPCs to just make the treasury impervious, and I'm not trying to fully block the players. Like I said above, I just want to make sure I've thought it through from the NPCs perspective, but they also don't have unlimited resources. Mostly, they just have predicted most avenues of thievery and have some measures in place to guard against it, even if it's not a blocker. Lamps which illuminate magical items/spells is one idea which wouldn't stop the players, but they'd have to work around it.
Like I also said, I do know my group well enough to know that they really enjoy feeling like they overcame impossible odds. I will certainly leave weaknesses and holes in the security (I've already thought up like 3 different ways they could breach the vault, like a waterway/sewer through the toilets/water fountain, an add-on chapel with a secret doorway to the vault underground, etc), but I also know this group would really love the challenge of scoping it out, finding the original design plans, and then working around the tight security. They have referenced the Oceans 11 movies multiple times in how excited they are for the heist, so I know they are anticipating a super tight security and extremely precise, well planned work.
A wildshaped druid's creature type is beast or elemental depending on the form they wild shape into.
"Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature’s bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can’t use them."
You only retain specific items from your character sheet. The stats are otherwise replaced by the stat block of the beast (or elemental for level 10+ moon druid). This includes creature type since that isn't one of the properties that is specified as being retained. So a wild shaped druid is not a humanoid.
However, this allows you to use the Hallow spell to apply effects to specific creature types including beasts that would affect a wild shaped druid. Hallow also allows additional effects at the DM discretion. For example, you could cause beasts failing the saving throw to become confused, stunned, blinded, etc. These spells can also be upcast if you like to make them harder to dispel if that might be a concern. You could also have more than one copy of the spell cast in an area so that if one is dispelled, additional stacked copies remain to affect creatures.
Other items you could include would be using Lanterns of Revealing as light sources so that invisibility is less of an option. The Alarm spell or a variation can handle silent notifications.
They could also have trained creatures that are perhaps identified by a magical band whose goal is to hunt down creatures that do not belong making it much harder to sneak in as a wild shaped or polymorphed creature without being found/attacked.
Oh, and put an inevitable in that vault as well, such as the new kolyarut (or something like it but more level-appropriate). The inevitables are the sort of multiversal police, and it makes sense that one would be stationed to combat the theft of something important.
This is excellent, thank you! Great suggestions here and things to think about. I think I'll probably use modified lanterns of revealing to achieve that "anything magical glows brightly" effect I was thinking of.
This is great, because I was actually planning on having a suped up warforged in the vault which would wake up and attack once anything is disturbed. The Kolyarut seem like a more sophisticated, advanced version of that idea haha.